Author: bmfreeman101

Gentle Reminders

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Above the sink in my kitchen is a Happy Meal Super Mario. I need him there.

The first two weeks after we bought our house, we visited McDonalds at least four times a week. We packed and scrubbed and painted as we prepared the house for our move… and the kids got Happy Meals. I felt terrible.

Not at empty nugget calories or extra ketchup packets. But at my lack of time with my babies, my distracted attention. With my snappiness and harsh words while I packed, and organized, and unpacked. At my anxiety over mess in our small place, and all the time in the car as we went over nightly to prepare our house before we moved in. Moving is a difficult task with babies, and I didn’t do it gracefully.

A year and a half later, as I sorted through toys ready to be passed along, Isaiah pulled Super Mario and Yoshi from my pile of give-aways. “You can’t get rid of him!”

“Why?”

“We got him the week we moved in!” (Don’t let anyone tell you that children have limited memories before the age of 4.)

“We did.”

“Momma, you can’t get rid of him. We got to eat McDonald’s with Meema and Beepa while they helped us get our house ready.”

My five year old son healed me in places I didn’t know needed healing. While I thought I was doing some lasting harm to him, he was making an incredible memory.

It’s a good reminder to me now. We’re currently gutting our kitchen, and living on frozen pizza and premade salad kits. I might see boxes and unending mess and total chaos, but he’s still focused on finding a cup to provide water for the bugs outside and finding snacks in our new and improved refrigerator.

Lord, that I would remain calm, and take time to play Legos while our house is under construction. That we would enjoy eating dinner outside in the fading sunshine, letting the dog snatch pepperoni from under the table while our dining room is stacked to the ceiling with boxes. That we would snuggle at the couch longer to read, instead of sitting around the kitchen table to talk.

In a busy world, full of crazy schedules and mom guilt, Mario serves as an important reminder. We’re not going to get it all right, no matter how hard we try. We make the best decisions we can in difficult situations. We love, even in our messiness.. And we give all of it to Christ, who daily bears our burdens. (Psalm 68:19 NIV)

Somehow, He is still transforming and working all things to His glory. And giving us eyes to see and ears to hear, even through Happy Meals and a plastic Super Mario figure. Who has earned a permanent spot on my windowsill.

Blessings.

The Wholeness of Peace

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I’ve wanted to start writing for months.  A new house in Mennonite country meant setting up a home, establishing new routines for our growing family, and working to find an Internet provider in an area Comcast doesn’t serve. An exhausting winter pregnancy meant early bedtimes and spare time curled up on the couch napping rather than opening a laptop. And life with three children five and under is always an unpredictable adventure.

Sitting down to write was like facing a standoff with a close friend that you haven’t talked to in months for no reason at all. I’ve wanted to return to my writing with something I could be particularly proud of, something brave and insightful. I’ve had a wonderful year and a half– lots of growth, lots of God insight– but by the time I got around to writing, it seemed forced. I wanted the “perfect comeback,” and when it didn’t come, I didn’t write.

I appreciate the beauty of symmetry, order, design. Perfection. Regular rhythms. If I had my way, New Years Resolutions would stick, diets and fresh starts would always occur on Mondays, and my writing wouldn’t ever take an 18 month hiatus. Dishes wouldn’t ever sit in my sink, laundry would be folded right away. Forgiveness would be easy to extend, and receive. My sense of order and grace would never be infringed upon and I would always be able to see clear story lines and character arcs in life.

Instead, the world is full of the asymmetrical, the abstract, the amorphous. Hard grace.

Jesus is Lord over all.

The same God who set the stars on their path of exactness created the dusty explosion of the supernova. He made rhythmic sunrises and tides, but also powerful hurricanes that change course and bring nuclear strength destruction. He created the industrious ant and the slowest moving sloth. He crafted the human body with utmost precision and functionality, and yet children wake up at 4 AM some mornings and bodily functions overflow.

We say that God is a god of order. We envision Him appreciating patterns, establishing methodologies and exacting perfection. Overflowing with clean and neat grace from His throne in the sky. And we beat ourselves up when we are messy and imperfect, when we don’t have a plan and don’t know where to start.

Jesus is Lord over all.

The truth is that nowhere in His Word does it say that God is a god of order. Instead in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul tells us that “God is not a God of disorder but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33 NIV).  Emmanuel is there in the asymmetrical, the abstract, the amorphous. The imperfect, the unplanned. In the manger bed to the teen aged virgin. Drawing us to Himself as only He can. Speaking over us in love, and healing us with His wholeness.

The unexpected God incarnate tells us later at the table, “Peace I leave with you; My Peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27 ESV)  This peace, eiréné, God gives is not the circumstantial peace the world tries to coax us into.

Instead eirō is joined, tied together into a whole.  When we are “joined to the Lord” and in “one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6:15 NLT), we need not feel peace, for we step into peace.

It is this eiréné-peace we embrace and offer to a world of hurt and suffering, discord and disorder.  To our hurting families, to broken marriages, to ends of friendships, to loss.  To infertility and uncertainty.  To war and violence.

God isn’t promising perfect circumstances or the certainty of order, but wholeness and unity.  Christ with us.  He is Lord.  In all, and over all and through all.  (Ephesians 4:6)  Amen.

Blessings.

Advent Without Expectation

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Saint James hurt his shoulder in a pickup football game in October. Hurt to the tune of severe sprain, level three AC joint separation with nearly ten weeks off of work to date.  It was not what I expected for the end of the year.

I had planned for a final monetary push to pay off a credit card. Weekend trips to celebrate Advent. Carving out special space as a family in preparation for the coming of our King. I hoped for a smaller, cash Christmas, and lots of secret giving.

When we carry expectation, we can forget the gift.

While I skipped most of the Black Friday sales, I’ve gotten morning coffee time with my husband. The special spaces I wanted for the Christmas season have overflowed into doing daily life together. Good talks on drives to doctor’s appointments, getting our basement organized, and washing and drying dishes together. A smaller, cash Christmas is happening, with lots of prior thought and planning and secret giving is done in the spirit of love sacrifice, instead of overflow.

When we carry expectation, we can forget gratitude.

We make plans for our lives. Marriages, jobs, children, moves. Specific homes and meals, dream vacations, grandiose plans. We tie strings around certain prayers, and feel failed if they don’t come to fruition.

We feel alone. Forgotten. Like we’ve been waiting for five hundred years in silence. But, Emmanuel has come! And the most powerful prayer we can pray is, “Let it be to me according to Your word.” (Luke 1:38B ESV)

There is provision in the now. And when we make our plans, we place them into the God who knows us better than we know ourselves. We pray “Thy will be done,” and place our expectation at the foot of the infant King who came to the ordinary in the most unexpected ways.

When we carry expectation, we can miss the Savior.

Advent is the preparation for our King. He is coming! But if we aren’t open to Him, however he might come, we may miss Him. Let us have eyes to see!

Blessings.

Becoming Mom

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I am blessed,at thirty-one, to still have the physical presence of my mother in my life.  The wisdom and steadfastness of her as love warrior in my life is a gift that I can never repay to her, but hope to pay forward with my own children.  Here are her words. . .

Anyone can give birth to a child and become a mother.  But it takes sacrifice, commitment, patience and love to become “Mom!”

It’s the sleepless nights tending to a newborn, the sacrifice of “self” each and every day, the constant watch over a toddler, nights spent awake watching over a sick child, the cancelled dinner or party plans at the last minute because of a fever or rash, the meals fit for kings prepared on a tight budget, the kissed boo-boos, the barf on your best dress, the holding of hands learning to cross a street and the trepidation letting go of hands to cross the street alone, the following of the school bus on the very first day of school to be sure they reach their destination.  The lost games, the tears you don’t have power to heal but somehow you do!  It’s standing in the rain to watch a sports game your child may or may not get to play in but wanting to be there “just in case!”  It’s being there for first loves, first dates, first heartbreaks!  Firsts!  Lasts!  Everything!  Day in, day out. . . because, well, that’s what moms do!

Sometimes, it means raising a child with health issues, sometimes disabilities. Sometimes, it means burying your child.  Sometimes it means tucking your dreams away for their future because they have other plans.  And that’s okay, because they have a right and duty to follow their own path.  And sometimes, it means watching them make horrible life decisions and loving them from afar, praying to God everything will be okay.  And sometimes it means loving them from afar because their life’s goals take them far away from you.

Being a mom is one of the most joyous and rewarding vocation’s any woman can ever hope for!  It is unconditional love at its finest.  And it is so very true that, as a mother, your heart is walking around on the outside of your body.  In my life, I have pieces of my heart walking around in eight incredible human beings.  I’m proud that they call me mom and I’m eternally grateful to God for entrusting their care and upbringing to me and their father.

Moms are their child’s biggest supporter, toughest adversary in tests of the will and harshest dose of conscience when you’ve screwed up.  But we do it for love!

To all the “mom’s” out there: Happy Mother’s Day!  Give yourself a little credit for raising up the next generation!  Motherhood is not for the feint of heart!  Nor is motherhood to be taken lightly!

With Mother’s Day just about here, I’m not sure I can celebrate my mothering yet.  I really haven’t arrived yet.

When I was seven and did my first confession, I remember confessing wasting energy opening the refrigerator and my white lies- and what if I was just keeping hold of information so I didn’t hurt anyone?  I was innocent, and loving and trusting.  But as I’ve grown older, I’ve become messier. A lot messier.

And not mom-blog messy of dishes undone and constant clutter, but the evil of spewing poison from my mouth, critical and judgmental, with downright disgust and hatred in my heart at times.  For the ones I love most and hold most dear to my heart.  Messy.  Ugly. Sinful.

And my mother, my love warrior mother, continues to love.  Love me!  Love deeply.  And speak grace and truth over me and each of my siblings.  Holding us accountable to our ugly and our sin, but pushing us forward.  Always forward.  Higher.  Better.

A mother’s love is the most beautiful love that pushes us to be our very best selves, because in Jesus, we can be.  We are new creations and a mother’s love remembers.  That somewhere in her messy, ugly, sinning adult, is the most beautiful gift from God.  An infant.  A new creation who is precious in His sight.  Who is worthy of her trying, her love.  Her all in all.

I’m not there yet.  My children are babies.  Whose energy is the most trying test for me.  They are innocent, and loving and trusting.  Their little mouths have only confessed utmost love for me.  Never uttered disdain or hate.  Their plump baby fingers have caressed and cared and clung.  Never pointed at me and spewed ugly.  Their eyes hold me in highest esteem, and they gift me with their love daily.  They’re in the years where I hold the most power, the most say and the most time.  In every moment, they are mine to steward over, to plant truth and grace into, and water and weed, and water and weed, and love on.

I pray.  Deeply.  That I will be able to be a love warrior in their lives.  To always, always, ALWAYS love them deepest because they are so very precious.  For all time.

True love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NIV)  God’s gift of a mother’s love is somehow closest to that of Christ’s in its depth, power and sacrifice.  I am eternally grateful.

 

Growing Stronger

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In the quiet of the early morning, I sat in my normal spot on the couch with a cup of coffee and prayed that I would have God’s eyes.  That I would see all of my time as precious time in His presence.  Not just the silence.  But every moment.

Because since that curtain tore from “top to bottom” and “the earth shook” (Matthew 27:51), every moment IS in His presence.  Desperately, I want to see.  And remember.  He is HERE.

Enter this day.  After early morning snuggles with my babies and quiet time in our Word, the crazy came.  Not the normal level of crazy that comes from having babies.  No.  My headstrong bird screamed most of the morning with hamburger gums from some aggressive incisors trying to push their way through.  And my rambunctious bug tried to spear his sister with a piece of driftwood that’s been unearthed during packing for our upcoming move, and then tied my vacuum hose around his waist and stretched every inch of that six foot tube as he pulled it like a sled across the living room.

Pouring rain.  An unfortunate incident with ketchup.  Isaiah disappearing.  An attempt at nap time.  Endless laundry.  And a whole lot of tired from new teeth and no nap.

Me, trying.  Saint James flexing his patience muscles as he deals with the crazies and his wife with the segmented brain and the ginormous attitude.  Bless him.

Gritted teeth and then tears over dinner.  And my apology of “I don’t want to be, to feel, like this.”

Then the brick up side my head that I so often pray for.

His presence.  Here.  In moving boxes taking over my square footage that should be play area for rainy days.  In no nap, and no quiet.  In teething.  In  chaos and attitude.  In life.

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Father Solanus Casey, the Capuchin friar, has a prayer that goes,

“Do not pray for easy lives.  Pray to be stronger.  Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers.  Pray for powers equal to your tasks. then the doing of your work shall be no miracle but you shall be a miracle.  Every day you shall wonder at yourself. at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.”

The winter, the hard times, the chaos, the moves.  It is what makes us stronger.  Pain paves the way to compassion, suffering makes way for the deepest healing.  Each day, God is working.  He is here.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4 NIV)

We pray for the vision, we pray for the strength and the perseverance, the character changes and the willing hearts, but are shocked by trials.  But it’s the tests that are growing us.

Recently, I asked my brother to spot me during a benchpress session, after not having lifted in years.  I maxed out and having not been to the gym regularly for over six years, my maximum weight was ten pounds less than when I had worked HARD over a couple years to set a personal record.  I was astounded.  The past couple years of lifting babies and hefty toddlers, sporadic workouts. . . and. . .  life.  Have made me, even physically, stronger.

God is working.  All of our moments, all of our time IS spent in His presence.  This IS holy ground, if we have eyes to see.  He IS growing us and developing us and using us.  And the day IS coming where we will pick up the weight astounded that it’s not so heavy.  To see that He has been using us all along, and that somehow we’ve changed and blossomed into a new creation that just, by its being, gives Him the glory.

Blessings.

 

The Resurrection and The Life

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Sometimes seasons run long.  Even in so-called easy winters, darkness abounds.  Late winter snowstorms and early nights where the stars aren’t visible.  Never ending cloud cover and dead places where we dwell for longer than one could imagine.

In darkness.  In death.  In depression.

The times where we feel God has forgotten.  Turned His face.  When we come home from the hospital without a baby to warm our arms and hearts.  When paychecks don’t come.  When our loved ones suffer.  When we go home day after day to broken homes, terminal diseases, loveless marriages, to discord and hurt.  The times where it feels like the world, the enemy, has won, and the case is closed and the door is shut.

Spring is coming.

Jesus’ victory doesn’t come when we expect it to.  Not how we want it to.  Not when we want it to.

In the 11th chapter of John, His victory shows up after Lazarus’ illness has set in, and supposedly won.  Mary and Martha have dealt with the sickness, the sleepless nights loved ones endure when their heart is suffering, the struggle with doctors.  They’ve walked through all the emptiness and ache, all the grief that comes with death, and the following burial.  Hope had lost.  Both Martha and Mary are accusatory and hurt, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:32 NIV)

Somehow death isn’t the end.

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”  (John 11:25 ESV)  Somehow our end is our beginning.  And despite seasons of death, of hurt and pain and anguish, somehow we will live again.

Whether we’re accepting or angry, bargaining or accusatory.  God meets us in our desperate need for Him.  And he breathes hope over our most hopeless situations.

Spring is coming.  Life is coming.  Resurrection is coming.

Sometimes, small at first, like the smallest buds on the honeysuckle bushes, or the first brave push of the daffodil through the dirt, when the snow hasn’t even melted away.

God is not done working.  He is never done working.  Even when it feels like the world, the enemy, has won, and the case is closed and the door is shut.  Keep pleading.  Keep trusting.

In resurrection season, miracles run deep and hope flows heavy through Him who can do all things.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13 NIV)

Blessings.

Hearing God

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Do you ever worry you can’t hear God’s voice?

That you won’t be able to, because there are these things.  Noise.  News that’s always tantamount to global disaster.  Work email in volume you could swim in.  To do lists and home projects that constantly grow, because other things come up.  Kids with sports and projects and get togethers.  Constant whirlwinds in jobs and moving schedules, and family and friends, and well, being needed.  Being human.  If God came in the still, small voice like He did for Elijah (1 Kings 19:12), would we miss Him?

I’m worried I would.  When I pray and pray and ask and pray and God seems silent, I wonder if there’s some problem.  Like I’m not tuned in enough, not silent enough.  Not really listening.  That I can’t possibly hear His voice, His plan, His will because there are so many demands in my life.  Like I’m not the right medium, and God will somehow pass me by.  With no answer.  Even when I’m trying.

Last week, Isaiah woke me close to midnight and said he had a dream.  We were playing basketball and he was playing on a bridge nearby.  He said the bridge broke and he fell in the water and kept going.  He looked crestfallen.  I asked if I caught him.

“No, Mama.  I just kept going and going.”

“And you didn’t get back to me?”

“No.  You weren’t there, and it was scary.”  He’s crushed.

“Baby.  I would never, ever let that happen.  I would always, always be there to get you.  And would never let you fall in and get away from me.  My love will find you wherever  you are.”

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There it is.  God’s voice.  In the still, smallest voice of a downcast child.

“If (we) then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to (our) children, how much more will (our) Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”  (Matthew 7:11 ESV)

God is here.  Listening.  And always, always Was and Is and ever shall Be there to be with us.  To love us and save us.  His Love will find us wherever we are.

The Bible tells us that, “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” (Luke 5:16 NIV)  It’s important to get our time in with Father.  To be in His presence, and focused on Him alone.  To speak to Him, and hear from Him.  It allows us to grow.  And for me, it sets the tone of my day.  When I’m filled with Him, I tend to spill better Words and Spirit than what I can naturally offer.  (Ha!)

How often we get irritated when our plans are messed up.  When people need us, and life gets busy and our flow gets interrupted, and we go without all those things we think we “need” to live securely and peacefully.

I can’t help but laugh at the picture of Jesus in the gospels.  The people, they follow Him.  Wherever.  He.  Goes.  And He keeps withdrawing (Matthew 14:13), “early in the morning” (Mark 1:35) or “late at night” (Matthew 14:23).  But the people, they find Him, and follow Him, and need from Him.  And I know our Messiah knows what a mother of young children… what I, feel like.  With need presenting itself at 2 AM, asking for a drink of water.  Following you around the house, mussing up your work and traipsing along into the bathroom, where you’re wanting to lock yourself in for a moment of peace.

If He is sovereign over the details, then the clearest voices of God’s will in our lives are the ones right in front of us.  Our coworker asking for a lift, a friend needing someone to listen, a stranger asking for a few dollars for lunch.  Our children asking for a cup of water, a tissue, to “Play with me, Daddy!”  Our significant other needing a loving hand, rather than a ranting lecture.

God has presented Himself in all of these needs!  We’re not missing hearing from Him, if you’re open to listening.  “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” (Matthew 10:42 NIV)  “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”  (Matthew 25:40 NIV)

Let’s not give into the temptation that we can’t be used.  That we are not enough.  That because of life we can’t possibly hear His voice, His plan, His will and that He will somehow pass us by.  If we are willing vessels, His voice is everywhere.  And if we need to hear Him loud and clear, then He will speak.  Loud and clear.  We won’t miss Him.

God is here.  In every detail.  Listening.  And loving and speaking.  He always, always Was and Is and ever shall Be there with us.  To love us and save us.  His Love will find us wherever we are.

 

Winter Blues

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There’s something about stomach flu for New Year’s, the accompanying never ending dirty laundry and social isolation, the follow up illnesses, the single digit temperatures, and pitch darkness at 6 PM that leaves one in an existentialist crisis at the start of a brand spanking new year.  Or maybe just me.

Who am I?  What am I doing with my life?  Does any of this have meaning?

We get tired and discouraged.  Facing treatments and our mortality head on, or accompanying someone who is.  Starting businesses, taking on side work or more hours, trying to make ends meet.  Caring for babies with fevers or reflux night after night, or aging parents who have gotten confused as time passes day after day.  Having the same fights with our kids, our spouses.  Being alone.  Not hearing from God for any kind of direction.  Uncertainty.  Obstacles.  Doubt.  Fear.

Who am I?  What am I doing with my life?  Does any of this have meaning?

These questions and the feelings that accompany them can bring us to awful places.  But don’t run from them.  Don’t avoid or ignore them.  Sit with them.  Embrace them.

The darkness, the desert, the existential crisis place can be the holy ground where we meet God.  Where we, like Jacob, feeling lost and alone may arise and say, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28:16B NIV)

Most of us want to wait until we’re on the “other side” of troubles to share our story, to relate with and love on people, to begin new journeys, to be totally and freely ourselves.  We feel like hard times and places are to be overcome, so that we can start anew.

My life counselor and pater familias reminded me earlier this week about the power of “dripping truth,” when we aren’t in a place to do more.  Different seasons mean different roles to play, and if God is sovereign than He is aware of every detail in our lives,  He knows.  He knows, “we (may be) hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV)  There is plan for us in the hard, difficult places.  He is there, in the midst.

The place where I end is my beginning.

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Somewhere in between Christmas and Easter, in the months we call “winter,” we cling to the unexpected birth of Messiah and look forward to a glorious Resurrection.  In this dead season, where nothing flowers and we struggle and wonder if there’s a point to anything, we wait with Hope for the victory over death that we know has come.

Isaiah prays over our meals each night, “Bless our food, and help the things grow up so well.”  We prayed in the summer over our harvest, but he continues to pray the same prayer into the winter season.  How important this lesson is, and amazing that it comes from my spirited three year old.  To pray in the dead time.

The time when we don’t see any progress, no blossoming or growing.  The times where it feels like we’re just hanging on, and persevering through the hard parts of life, namely sickness and death in whatever form that comes.

“The climate in which prayer flowers is that of the desert, where the comfort of man is absent, where the secure routines of man’s city offer no support, and where prayer must be sustained by God in the purity of faith.”  (Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer)

The greatest of faiths are built in the times where we ask the hard questions.  Who am I?  What am I doing with my life?  Does any of this have meaning?  When you’re tempted to give up, press on.

The place where I end is my beginning.

“Through Jesus… let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.” (Hebrews 13:15 NIV)  The season is passing.  There will be new springs, new Life, and more troubles, more death.  A heart that trusts and continues to praise, even in the midst, honors Him.

We must start here.  We must share our stories, relate with and love on people, begin new journeys.  Be totally and freely ourselves.

Carpe Deum

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Sometimes I find something I’d really like to do:  a craft, a recipe, a re-decorating thing and I make up my mind that I’m on a mission.

I begin planning it.  I budget for the materials, buy all that I need during my weekly shopping trip and set aside a time in my overworked, old school spiral planner.

Then the day comes and I begin the thing in my quiet time (nap time), because, thank the omniscient Lord, my children still take an afternoon nap together.  This nap usually lasts about an hour and a half.  Except on this day.

I will no doubt have scissors askew, paper shreds everywhere, and a hot glue gun oozing on cardboard if I’m crafting.  If I’m baking, I’m elbows deep kneading or about to roll dough.  And if I’m moving things, nothing is as it should be.  I have stacks of organization going on, and furniture awry and probably some tool out, tossed aside that I’ve forgotten about.

On this day, the project day, one of the babies arises.  Less than a half hour into their nap.  My little snuggle bug and love bird, they are so sweet.  They are my heart.  They rub their eyes, and toddle toward me in their sleep daze.  They climb up into my lap and melt me to the core.  These days, they won’t last.  I never miss an opportunity to snuggle.

As the one in my lap slowly wakes up, the other one is now up.  Because they’re peas in a pod and the best of friends, or maybe just because the body heat beside them left.  In any case, the second one is not far behind.  They too will climb up into my lap for groggy snuggle time.  But at this point, the first is beginning to catch their snap.

It is now that I realize the dangers of the scissors, my dough rising over the edges of the immense silver bowl, or just how little progress I made with the organization piles across the floor.  Which is of little importance now, because it’s either being driven across as a bridge for matchbox cars or torn into the tiniest shreds and tossed about the room.

Oh, how the crazy arises.  Slow at first, with patience for this piece of heart that was just in my lap, and then faster as I realize my project will sit.  My opportunity was missed.

Carpe diem.

No mother coined this phrase.

But I try.  And as fast as the days are flying by, I can’t capture a moment or seize a day.  Because.  It’s.  Insane.  These small ones, they are the most amazing, incredible creatures.  Isaiah, who is crazy articulate, and demanding of responses.  Who laughs loud at himself in the mirror, practicing his funny faces and trying hard to be independent.  My three year old wonder who looks like a five year old, but still screws up his face like a baby when he cries.  Zoe, my fiery bird, who needs to feed herself, and clothe herself, and just do everything.  Herself.  Who doesn’t know how to speak her mind yet, but puts her hand on her hip and babbles, not letting the lack of words stop her.  The fifteen month old ball of energy who climbs tables and chairs and isn’t afraid to jump, who screams inconsolable and laughs hysterically in the same second.

I can’t seize the day, because despite my attempts at rhythm, there’s always a hiccup.  Or some bodily function, that will undoubtedly make me late despite my careful planning and laying out of clothes and jackets the night before.

It makes me crazy, and I can’t help it.  This season is insane.

This season is insane.  This December-Christmas business, where we want to and feel obligated to visit our friends and neighbors, families and coworkers.  Where we can focus on how much shopping and cleaning we have to do.  The wrapping, the plans, the baking, the visiting.  The decorating and the pressure to make memories.  Don’t seize the moment.

Carpe DEUM.

Seize God.

That’s why He came.  That’s why He’s here, among us, Emmanuel.  It’s no accident that during the weeks of Advent, we celebrate Him as our Hope, our Peace, our Joy, our Love.

In all these moments, we can focus on what we need to accomplish.  On seizing the day and making every moment count.  But what pressure that is, that we can’t and won’t ever live up to.  What if we focused on Him instead?

The One that came to be born of a young virgin girl.  The One who wasn’t born with a doctor in a house or an inn, but was wrapped in cloths and placed in a manger where the animals were bedded down.  The One who was called blasphemer and a drunkard that escaped stoning by the most religious.  The One who always, always, ALWAYS made time for the least, the poor, the marginalized, the voiceless.  The One who became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13 NIV) and completely turned the world on its head.  The One who fulfilled the prophet, “He tends His flock like a shepherd:  He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young.”  (Isaiah 40:11 NIV)  Who is also, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6B NIV)

The One who was nothing what the world expected, but everything we needed.

There will always be projects and problems and pressures.  These are the pieces of life.  If they become our focus, we will miss out on the heart.  Maybe taking the time in relationship IS the mission.  And if the opportunity to love on someone arises, we should seize God and run to them with open arms, embracing the God ordained present.

Live blessed.

 

 

A Step Away

Published on by bmfreeman101Leave a comment

This month has been a crazy one.  For most of us, I think.

Between election results and backlash and strange swinging weather in the Mid Atlantic, Thanksgiving celebrations and a seemingly slower Black Friday weekend (Cyber Week, yes?), this November has rushed by, pushing us closer to 2017 than I can comprehend.

I can’t help but pray for unity in this season.  There’s been so much division, so many soapboxes with so much ranting this year.

But you know what?  We’re all trying.  There’s unity in that we care.  In our activism and quest for justice.  We may not see eye to eye, and we might be on opposing sides of the proverbial coin, but we care.  We love.  We screw up.  We maybe talk too much, but we try again.  And we’re called to forgive.  To converse.  To keep loving.

So please, dear ones, stop pointing fingers at the people around you.  Don’t vilify your neighbor for checking a box, or label them some derogatory term that simplifies the entirety of their being into a single word.  Just don’t.

We’re not Democrat or Republican.  Nasty women or deplorables.  We can’t be boxed in by our gender, our nationality, our religion.  We’re not contained within a noun for sexuality.  We’re not just our location, our economic state, or our education.  We’re human.  In all of our glorious infinite and infinitesimal diversity, complexity and potential.  And most of us are trying our damnedest to do this human thing right.

We’re all just a step away.  A step away from being an entirely different person in an entirely different scenario.

Our culture pushes us to take pride in “creating ourselves.”   But control is an illusion– think about all the factors you didn’t choose for yourself.  Your birthplace, the color of your skin, your gender, your parents.  Your family.  The socio-economic status you were born into.  The public school you attended.  Or the private one that your parents decided on for you.  To think that we did anything on our own for our own is unmerited pride.  There are just too many factors in our lives that were written.

But for the grace of God go I.

If you’re angry or agitated with the world around you, first take a look in the mirror and examine yourself.  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23 NIV)  We’ve all hated, and spoken untruth.  In this age of internet and social media, we’ve helped propagate division and probably told a few jokes at another’s expense.  Or laughed at one.  Or been spiteful behind some screen that makes us more confrontational than ever before with someone we disagree with at an ideological level.

We accept and join along in the media circus.  With the bashing and the division.  We allow and join in on the smack talk, and don’t seek answers on policy or push for resolution on some of the biggest issues facing the whole of the American people today:  a mountain of national debt, dangerous overspending, an aging population, whose safety net is quickly disappearing, and this strange obsession with the poor and marginalized, either vilifying them for the “choices” they make or elevating their interests to predominate over the common good.

And we let the media distract us.  We listen to what we want to hear, don’t fact check and re-peat and re-post without a thought for unity.  We allow division and untruth into our homes.  We talk about it at our water coolers and over our dinner tables.  We unveil and flaunt our most base selves, before our coworkers, our families.  Our children.

We embrace the division.  Revel in it, even.  And talk about how different the “other” is.

Tell that to your babies.

Tell them we need Jesus.  That as a society, we dig up dirt and like to point fingers when the problem is in us.  That sin is rampant in this fallen world.  That politics are supposed to be about policy and philanthropy about loving people.  Period.  And then.  Speak with respect.  Listen deeply.  Educate yourself.  Those little eyes are watching.

Most people aren’t left or right.  We’re right here, in the middle.  And our states are some blend of purple in these election years.  Most of us try hard to treat the person in front of us with dignity and respect, despite our standings and our platforms.  We really aren’t all that different.

The answer to our division and brokenness?  It has never been outside of us-in a government, or legislation or policy.  The answer lies within us.  Micah wrote more than 2,500 years ago, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  (6:8 NIV)  We must embrace Emmanuel, God with us, and move forward, walking humbly and understanding His story.  We’re all just a step away.